California Fights to Move Sanctuary Suit to San Fran

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is laughing this week after a motion was filed by California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra to move the DOJ’s sanctuary state lawsuit from Sacramento to San Francisco.

Explaining that the motion ‘makes no sense’, lawyers for the DOJ detailed that Sacramento is the obvious location for the suit since it’s the state capitol.

The only reason, explained Sessions, for CA wanting to move to San Francisco is because the San Fran court is notoriously liberal, having been one of the several courts that issued an injunction on Trump’s travel ban.

The Department of Justice has filed a motion opposing the State of California’s effort to move a lawsuit against its “sanctuary state” laws from a federal district court in Sacramento to one in San Francisco.
As Politico’s Josh Gerstein reported Monday:

In a submission to Sacramento-based U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez on Monday, Justice Department lawyers seemed to ridicule the transfer proposal floated last week by attorneys from the office of state Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

“It is remarkable that the State of California would seek to delay this matter primarily so that it can avoid litigating in its State capital. There is no basis to seriously entertain this request that the case be transferred,” Justice Department lawyers wrote. “California’s wish to defend these challenges in another federal judicial district in San Francisco, where the State capital is not located and where the official Defendants do not reside, makes no sense.”

Lawyers from Justice’s Office of Immigration Litigation called the state’s transfer suggestion “meritless,” despite the fact that attorneys for the state have yet to file a formal motion seeking the transfer. In a scheduling filing last Friday, lawyers from Becerra’s office said a transfer to San Francisco would be warranted because a judge there is already considering a case that involves a federal law seeking to prohibit certain local and state policies from preventing cooperation with immigration authorities.